Wednesday, May 4, 2011

I Answered the Call - Will You?

Tuesday was, as Victorio Milian would say, a put up or shut up day for me. In Monday's post I discussed how I had committed to not only being a participant at HRevolution, but actually stepping up and taking action once I returned home. The day of reckoning happened for me on Tuesday.

Go For ItI am privileged to meet with a terrific group of leaders on a quarterly basis. We started as colleagues, but our connections have grown deeper. My call to action was to challenge this group to do more...be more...push themselves....to change how they practice HR. Let me just say this group is not a bunch of light weights. They are at the top of their game...people I admire...and trust. Completely.

But there is an opportunity for them, and me, to grow. And when the moment presented itself I jumped in with both feet.We're Supposed to Be the LeadersOur discussion moved to a topic that brought an awkward moment to our meeting. Social media was the issue, and the heads all turned toward the one person that uses it in the room. Me. Then the obligatory poll of all eight of us was taken: "How many of you twitter?" One hand went up. That's when I jumped in...

My message was simple and direct:

"When our CEOs turn to us and ask us what's happening with social media, and need us to explain why we aren't keeping pace with those outside our organizations, what are we going to say? If we don't understand how HR has changed, if we don't understand the external threats, and if we have to admit that we have no idea how any of this works, how will that make HR look? We don't have a choice...we must understand how the world of HR has changed...and we have to do something about it."

Silence.

And then a plan developed to have me do a formal presentation on the strengths and risks of social media and HR. Awesome.

How About YouWhat is your call to action? It doesn't matter if you attended HRevolution or not, you know what you have to do. So fire up your smart phone, and put this on the top of your task list.

I actually had the exact same experience in agency recruitment and in preparing the training I was able to learn a ton myself, and position myself as an internal expert on the subject - was a great experience.